On April 26, 1935, the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) — at the time one of the most potent organizations on the American left, counting a total of 66,000 members — held its First American Writers’ Congress. Hosted by New York’s New School, the event was the CPUSA’s first meeting dedicated exclusively to the theme of political art; its task was to “extend the reach of the organization,” preparing a “decaying capitalism” for “the establishment of a workers’ government,” instantiated (rather meekly perhaps) through the medium of literature.

The list of attendees — Americans Mike Gold and James T. Farrell, literary lions such as André Malraux, Ford Madox Ford, and Louis Aragon — was reputable, to say the least. This impressive lineup, however, was not what made the conference famous. Rather, the Writers’ Congress owes its notoriety to one specific speech, given on the morning of second day: “Revolutionary Symbolism in America,” by literary critic Kenneth Burke, which still remains one of the most riveting texts ever written on the American left.

As Burke noted in his opening remarks to the conference: